“Perhaps he can avoid being stretched by falling in a horizontal position, legs and head at the same altitude. Yet when the giant tries it, he finds a new discomfort; the stretching sensation is replaced by an equal feeling of compression. He feels as if his head is being pressed toward his feet. To understand why this is so, let’s temporarily imagine that the Earth is flat. Here is what it would look like. The vertical lines, together with the arrows, indicate the direction of the gravitational force—not surprisingly, straight down. But more than that, the strength of the gravitational pull is entirely uniform. The 2,000-Mile Man would have no trouble in this environment, whether he fell vertically or horizontally—not until he hit the ground anyway. But the Earth is not flat. Both the strength and the direction of gravity vary. Instead of pulling in a single direction, gravity pulls directly toward the center of the planet, like this: This creates a new problem for the giant if he falls horizontally. The force on his head and feet will not be the same because gravity, as it pulls toward the center of the Earth, will push his head toward his feet, leading to the strange sensation of being compressed. Let’s return”